Developmental Origins of Promoting the Common Good

• In Event: 3-032 - Choosey children: early-emerging sophistication in children’s partner choice decisions

Integrative Statement

Contributing to the common good is essential for human flourishing, but individuals may be tempted to benefit from the group without contributing (i.e., to free ride). Substantial debate has surrounded the question of whether humans have evolved psychological mechanisms to deter free riding and promote cooperation (Tooby, Cosmides, & Price, 2006). Here we extend this inquiry to childhood, to examine children’s responses to people who do or do not contribute to groups, before they are expected to be contributors themselves or exposed to modern systems of social sanctioning. Despite that substantial developmental research has revealed that young children can help and cooperate with other people in interpersonal contexts (e.g., Warneken & Tomasello), much less is known about their expectations and behaviors to cooperate and contribute in group contexts, which is the focus of our present research.

Across six studies, we presented 4-10-year-olds (total N=192) scenarios involving four-member groups with collective goals that require donations from the members. The groups will get bigger rewards (e.g., a bigger cake) if more members donate their belongings (e.g., chocolate). In most of the scenarios, three out of four members contribute but one does not (i.e., free ride). Children were asked to evaluate the free riders and contributors on a four-point scale after each story. In the first two studies, we found a strong tendency that 6-10-year-olds (Study 1) and 4-5-year-olds (Study 2) negatively evaluated free riders compared to contributors in third-party situations (p < .001). Given these initial findings, we explored the potential factors underlying children’s evaluations by manipulating the intentions of the free riders, group outcomes, group norms of free riding, as well as individual outcomes. We found that children’s reactions were particularly sensitive to the intentions of free riders (Studies 1&2, Figure 1), and were not driven by the negative outcomes free riding imposed on the group (Study 3), by the contribution norm of the group (Study 4), or by the unfair rewards obtained by free riders (Study 5). Further, a meta-analysis across the five studies (N=137) showed that the tendency to negatively sanction free riders are stronger among younger children than among older children, speaking against straightforward socialization accounts.

Finally, we explored children’s responses when they played a similar game in first-party situations with other children as a group (Study 6). We found that children negatively evaluated, punished and avoided to collaborate with free riders as first-parties, regardless of whether their own payoffs were affected or not affected by the free riders (Figure 2).

Taken together, we found an early emerging and robust tendency to sanction free riders in both first-party and third-party situations, suggesting that children hold and defend an intrinsic normative expectation of contributing to the common good. The findings are also consistent with the view that we may be equipped with an evolved psychological machinery for cheater detection, partner choice and punishment that facilitates cooperation.

Authors

• Fan Yang, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• You-jung Choi, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Antonia Misch, Ludwig Maximilian University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xin Yang, Yale University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yarrow Dunham, Yale
  Non-Presenting Author